Why Birth is Disgusting ... To Some
So grateful for this beautiful and understanding post from one of our Mama Birth mothers. I love how she is able to better understand other mothers from this interaction. We all come from so many different places with our birth experiences. Undoubtedly, no matter our age, birth changes us. Finding understanding and love for each other is so much more useful than anger and offense. Enjoy!
By Bethany Learn, Fit2B Studio
A
while back, many mothers posted photos of their births as protest
against facebook's unexplainable removal of breastfeeding and birth
pictures that were often more tasteful than much of the other
objectifying garbage we see on there. I'm not usually the protesting
type, but I am passionate about birth and LOVE talking about my own two
natural vaginal hospital births. So I changed my profile picture to this
...
"This is
disgusting." That was the very first comment to roll in under my
precious picture of me standing through a difficult contraction while
dilated to 6cm. Disgusting? Perhaps this respectable church woman who
was practically my god-mother meant it was disgusting that facebook was
removing pictures like it, but I dared to ask her to clarify. "The photo
is disgusting. Nobody wants to see this." For some reason, I had a very
physical reaction to her words. My fingers began to tremble, and I just
sat there, staring at her unbelievable comment! This woman had given
birth to several babies. She was an amazing grandmother. Why did she describe my
rather modest birth photo as disgusting?
I was hurt and shocked ... so I did what any
self-respecting facebook addict does: I enlisted help from my 582
friends to refute and counteract her statement by posting a status that
said something along the lines of, "I just changed my profile picture to
one of my labor with my son, and one of my 'friends' just called it
disgusting. Please go respond to her comment. Is she right?" Almost a
hundred responses and various viewpoints poured into the resulting
thread.
"She is wrong"
"This is a gorgeous pic"
"What is
so ugly about it ... birth is beautiful"
"She's just a #&*%@ don't
listen to her!"
These were just some of the responses. But this woman isn't a bleepity-bleep. She is someone I
have looked up to. She has been on mission trips to Africa,
for crying out loud. And now my friends were calling her names. Oops.
Did I mention she's also a shoestring relative? Double oops. There goes
next summer's family reunion. What else could I do but call my mom.
"Mama, why is she angry? Why does she birth as
disgusting?" I felt like a child again with a million questions, just
wanting to understand something that surely made sense on another level,
but not on mine. "Mom, when Iook at that picture, I see the shape of my
son within me. I see my sister supporting me as she puts counter
pressure on my back. I see the smile of the nurse who has finally given
in to my request to NOT belt the monitor onto me! But what does she see
that is so disgusting, Mom?" My mother then told me something that
resonated with me and helped me to understand this old, angry woman who
saw birth and swollen bellies and disgusting.
"Bethany, I've told you about my births, all four of
them. When I had your brother 45 years ago, birth was not like it is
now. You had so many choices! I was amazed at how powerful you were
throughout your pregnancies and births, at how you were able to insist
on what you wanted. With Bryan, they left me alone in a dark room. When I
felt him coming, I had to scream for help. Your father wasn't allowed
to be with me. I had to crawl into the hallway, vomiting and crying..."
I asked my mother to please post her thoughts into
the comment stream, and suddenly the attitude of everyone shifted. The
younger women, including me, stopped being defensive, and a few more
older women chimed in, sharing their tear-jerking stories. It's not that
birth is disgusting to them; it's that some of our photos bring back
nightmares of mistreatment and messages of Eve's sin.
My heart now breaks for the older women among us who
were refused the empowering experience that many of us now take for
granted. They do not see the beauty of birth's blood, but we can show
them. We can keep showing them they brought us into the world to bring
change out of old systems. We can show them how we've found joy in the
process, power in the pain, laughter in labor.
Bethany Learn is the founder of Fit2B Studio, an online fitness studio that features wholesome home workouts for the whole family. She lives in Oregon with her husband and two children. Her hobbies include crocheting rugs out of old shirts, editing for indie authors, and working on "The Shabin," an off-grid shed/cabin on family land in Montana.
Comments
It makes me so sad to hear what some women have gone through in birth (and sadly, what some women still go through because they don't know what to look for or what to ask for, or who to ask for help)
"This is disgusting" is a wrong and hurtful comment, but it;s so interesting to see where that type of comment towards a beautiful birth would come from. we all have very different stories and journies.
I was alone, husband and mother in the waiting room. Nurse poking her head in the door occassionally to ask, "are you PAINS any closer together yet?"
When they gave me gas in the delivery room I was relieved and happy to be unconscious.
But later when I found out my baby was born 20 minutes later....I was FURIOUS!
After all that, they took the BIRTH away from me. Crazy.
So I went on the have 4 more babies, all in the hospital but natural unmedicated and uninterfered with births. TRIUMPHS!
At the same time I had my fist babies my SIL had a doctor who patted her on the hand and said" There there, Dear, You don't need to do a thing. I will take care of everything." (and this reassured her.
It all came right for ME when one of my daugthers came home to have her baby at our house and I caught the baby!
(How I would have loved to have a home birth myself, but did not know how to find a midwife and had NO support from husband and family)
Anyway, birth is both good and bad in ANY generation depending on what you KNOW. And of course having great support people is wonderful if you know how to find them.